By Jerry DeMarco—
EXCLUSIVE: A YouTube video presented by lawyers for the youngest son of reggae great Peter Tosh failed to convince a judge in Hackensack to lower their client’s bail in connection with 65½ pounds of pot that Mahwah police said they found in the trunk of his car on Father’s Day weekend.
The defense argued to Superior Court Judge Judge John A. Conte that a “family bond” would hold Jawara G. McIntosh just as securely as the $200,000 bail that has kept him in the Bergen County Jail the past four months.
The video includes a brief interview with one of McIntosh’s young daughters, Selecta Jah Tosh, saying how involved he is in her and her sister’s lives. Also interviewed is his sister, Niame McIntosh, a Boston public school teacher who said her brother’s time spent behind bars so far “is really too long knowing that he’s really not a bad person.
Peter Tosh with Bob Marley, Mick Jagger
“He’s not a menace to society.”
Niame McIntosh refers in the video to their world-renowned father, who was killed during a 1987 home invasion in his native Jamaica, as “a musical ambassador for equal rights.”
Grammy winner Peter Tosh (Winston Hubert McIntosh) was a member of Bob Marley’s Wailers, arguably the most accomplished reggae band in musical history. Although an international recording star, Tosh didn’t achieve fame in the U.S. until his 1978 duet with Mick Jagger on the Temptations song “Don’t Look Back.”
He fought publicly against apartheid and for the legalization of marijuana for much of his career.
McIntosh, 33, who shares his father’s “Legalize It” advocacy and goes by the performing name “Tosh 1,” is seen in the video presented to Conte referring to himself, the youngest of his father’s sons, as the “last hope for his legacy.”
“I’m going to make sure I live up to that,” he adds:
Presented with the video, in addition to a report on the medicinal benefits of marijuana, the judge declined Monday to reduce McIntosh’s bail.
McIntosh didn’t have a license — and had open bottles of booze on the front seat — when his rental car was stopped for recklessly cutting off other motorists on Route 17 in June, Mahwah police said at the time.
The officer who pulled over the 2013 Nissan Maxima said McIntosh appeared under the influence of some type of drug. He and his passenger also gave conflicting accounts of where they’d come from and where they were headed, police said.
The vehicle was searched, with McIntosh’s consent, after other officers arrived: They found two large pieces of luggage in the trunk that reeked of pot, Mahwah Police Chief James Batelli said.
Jawara “Tosh 1″ McIntosh
The officers found two bundles of marijuana inside one and a third in the other, Batelli said. One was shrink-wrapped, he said, and the other two wrapped in duct tape.
Mcintosh and his passenger, Carlotta Z. Leslie, 23, both of Dorchester, Mass., Leslie “denied any knowledge that the marijuana in the vehicle,” the chief added.
Both were arrested on charges of marijuana possession with the intent to distribute the drug. McIntosh also was charged with two counts of driving under the influence of drugs, driving with a suspended license, improper passing and having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle.
Batelli said both have criminal records. Mcintosh “had been arrested for disorderly persons offenses, assault, resisting arrest, and promoting prostitution,” while Leslie “had been arrested for resisting arrest, assault on a police officer, assault and prostitution.”
A group called Cannibas Patriots Unite (CPUnite) has taken up McIntosh’s cause, claiming he was arrested for “driving while dread[locked]” and calling him the world’s “most important political prisoner.”
The California/Colorado non-profit group contends that McIntosh is accused of possessing an “herb” that in 20 states, including New Jersey, is considered to have medicinal value.
For those who follow the African-based spiritual ideology known as Rastafari, pot is a sacrament, “whether it be a stick or a ton,” the group adds.
“One crucial element of this mission is to make it very clear to the world that arrests for cannabis are politically motivated and are not based on science or legitimate social needs,” CPUnite said in a statement following the bail hearing.
“Under our mandate we hold (and science supports) that cannabis herb is a perfect medicine as it repairs, restores and supplements the mechanism by which our body heals itself: the endocannabinoid system,” it continued.
“Its ease of use, safety profile, and wide range of applications means that cannabis herb is an effective, safe medicine. It belongs into the hands of the people, for it provides treatment at fraction of the cost of currently sanctioned healthcare. In this, The Herb lives up to its reputation as The Healing of the Nation.”
